Six Miles from Charleston, Five Minutes to Hell: The Battle of Seccessionville, June 16, 1862

by James A. Morgan III, Kyle Sinisi (Foreword by)

Overview

A comprehensive account of this bitterly fought yet unjustly forgotten early conflict of the Civil War.

The small, curiously named village of Secessionville, just outside of Charleston, South Carolina was the site of an early war skirmish, the consequences of which might have been enormous had the outcome been different. But the Confederate victory was quickly overshadowed by the Seven Days battles, fought shortly afterward and far to the north.

The Battle of Secessionville was as bloody and hard fought as any similar sized encounter during the war. But it was poorly planned and poorly led by the Union commanders whose behavior did not do justice to the courage of their men.

In Six Miles from Charleston, Five Minutes to Hell, historian Jim Morgan examines the lead up to the conflict, the skirmish itself on June 16, 1862, and its aftermath. By including several original sources not previously explored, he takes a fresh look at this small, but potentially game-changing fight, and shows that it was of much more than merely local interest at the time.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781611216028
Publisher:	Savas Beatie
Publication date:	10/05/2023
Series:	Emerging Civil War Series
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	192
Sales rank:	47,879
File size:	87 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Jim Morgan is a co-founder and past president of the Fort Sumter Civil War Round Table in Charleston, SC. He is a member of the board of the Fort Sumter-Fort Moultrie Historical Trust. He also is a past president of the Loudoun County Civil War Roundtable in Leesburg, VA, and was a co-founder and chairman of the Friends of Ball’s Bluff. His previous work includes a tactical study of Ball’s Bluff titled A Little Short of Boats: The Battles of Ball’s Bluff and Edwards Ferry and a chapter on the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War for ECW’s Turning Points of the Civil War. He also has written for Civil War Times, America’s Civil War, The Artilleryman, Blue & Gray, and other periodicals. Retired in 2014 from the State Department, Jim spends much of his time as a National Park Service volunteer at Forts Sumter and Moultrie.

Table of Contents

Foreword Dr. Kyle S. Sinisi xiii

Prologue xxi

Chapter 1 Charleston's Back Door 1

Chapter 2 The Great Escape 17

Chapter 3 Hunter and Benham Begin to Move 27

Chapter 4 The Navy Secures the Stono 35

Chapter 5 The Confederates Dig In 43

Chapter 6 Establishing the Beach Head 59

Chapter 7 The Day of Trial Is Upon Us 71

Chapter 8 Docs It Ever Get Dry in This Country? 83

Chapter 9 The First Heavy Blows 95

Chapter 10 The Council of War 109

Chapter 11 One of the Decisive Engagements of the War 117

Chapter 12 Your Gun Deserves to Be Mounted on a Golden Pivot 145

Appendix A Driving Tour of the Battle of Secessionville 153

Appendix B The Brothers: "Him on the one side and me on the other." 159

Order of Battle 162

Suggested Reading 164

About the Author 166

Editorial Reviews

An excellent look at an obscure battle, yet one that might have altered the course of the war through the capture of Charleston. …this is an excellent read.

The NYMAS Review

An argument can be made that the ECW series is at its best when addressing military operations of this scale, and this is one of the strongest entries of that kind.

Civil War Books and Authors